Translation Guides

All Translation Guides

The best English translations of the classics, with first-reader recommendations

Choosing the right translation is one of the most consequential decisions you can make as a reader. The same novel or poem can feel entirely different depending on who translated it — different rhythm, different tone, different moral weight. These guides cover each work in depth: what the main options are, what each translator prioritises, and which edition to start with if you're reading for the first time.

Which Odyssey translation should you read? Compare Emily Wilson, Fagles, Lattimore, and Green with sample passages and first-reader recommendations.

Crime and Punishment

Which Crime and Punishment translation should you read? Compare Pevear & Volokhonsky, Oliver Ready, McDuff, and Garnett with first-reader recommendations.

Which Anna Karenina translation should you read? Compare Pevear & Volokhonsky, Rosamund Bartlett, the Maudes, and Marian Schwartz with first-reader recommendations.

Brothers Karamazov

Which Brothers Karamazov translation should you read? Compare Pevear & Volokhonsky, McDuff, Avsey, and Garnett with first-reader recommendations.

Which War and Peace translation should you read? Compare Pevear & Volokhonsky, Anthony Briggs, the Maudes, and Garnett with first-reader recommendations.

The Divine Comedy

Which Divine Comedy translation should you read? Compare Kirkpatrick, Mandelbaum, Sayers, and Singleton across all three canticles with first-reader recommendations.

Which Aeneid translation should you read? Compare Sarah Ruden, David Ferry, and Frederick Ahl with first-reader recommendations.

Which Iliad translation should you read? Compare Robert Fagles, Emily Wilson, Richmond Lattimore, and Caroline Alexander with first-reader recommendations.

The Count of Monte Cristo

Which Count of Monte Cristo translation should you read? Compare Robin Buss and Lowell Bair with first-reader recommendations.

Which Meditations translation should you read? Compare Gregory Hays, Robin Waterfield, and George Long with first-reader recommendations.

Les Misérables

Which Les Misérables translation should you read? Compare Fahnestock & MacAfee, Norman Denny, and Julie Rose with first-reader recommendations.

Which Don Quixote translation should you read? Compare Edith Grossman, John Rutherford, and Burton Raffel with first-reader recommendations.

The Metamorphosis

Which Metamorphosis translation should you read? Compare Susan Bernofsky, Stanley Corngold, and Michael Hofmann with first-reader recommendations.

Which Trial translation should you read? Compare Breon Mitchell, Edwin and Willa Muir, and Mike Mitchell with first-reader recommendations.

Which Beowulf translation should you read? Compare Seamus Heaney, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Maria Dahvana Headley with first-reader recommendations.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Which Gilgamesh translation should you read? Compare Andrew George, Stephen Mitchell, and David Ferry with first-reader recommendations.

Which Oresteia translation should you read? Compare Robert Fagles, Richmond Lattimore, and Anne Carson with first-reader recommendations.

Which Madame Bovary translation should you read? Compare Lydia Davis, Geoffrey Wall, and Francis Steegmuller with first-reader recommendations.

Which Idiot translation should you read? Compare David McDuff, Alan Myers, and Henry Carlisle with first-reader recommendations.

In Search of Lost Time (Swann's Way)

Which Proust translation should you read? Compare Lydia Davis, the Vintage Moncrieff/Kilmartin, and the Modern Library complete series with first-reader recommendations.

The Tale of Genji

Which Tale of Genji translation should you read? Compare Royall Tyler, Edward Seidensticker, and Arthur Waley with first-reader recommendations.

Which Oedipus Rex translation should you read? Compare Robert Fagles, the Chicago Complete Greek Tragedies, and Paul Roche with first-reader recommendations.

Which Faust translation should you read? Compare Martin Greenberg (Yale), David Luke (Oxford), and Walter Arndt (Norton Critical) with recommendations for every kind of reader.

The Master and Margarita

Which Master and Margarita translation should you read? Compare Pevear & Volokhonsky (Penguin), Mirra Ginsburg (Grove), and Diana Burgin & Katherine Tiernan O'Connor (Ardis).

Which Demons translation should you read? Compare Pevear & Volokhonsky (Vintage), Robert Maguire (Penguin), and Constance Garnett (The Possessed) with recommendations for every reader.

Which Dead Souls translation should you read? Compare Pevear & Volokhonsky (Vintage), Christopher English (Oxford), and Bernard Guilbert Guerney (Yale) with reader recommendations.

The Metamorphoses

Which Metamorphoses translation should you read? Compare David Raeburn (Penguin), Allen Mandelbaum (Harcourt), and Rolfe Humphries (Indiana) with reader recommendations.

One Thousand and One Nights

Which Arabian Nights translation should you read? Compare Malcolm Lyons (Penguin Classics), Husain Haddawy (Norton), and Sir Richard Burton with reader recommendations.

Which Decameron translation should you read? Compare Wayne Rebhorn (Norton), G.H. McWilliam (Penguin Classics), and Guido Waldman (Oxford) with reader recommendations.

On the Nature of Things

Which Lucretius translation should you read? Compare A.E. Stallings (Penguin Classics), Ronald Melville (Oxford), and R.E. Latham (Penguin Classics) with reader recommendations.

Which Georgics translation should you read? Compare David Ferry (FSG), Peter Fallon (Oxford World's Classics), and Kimberly Johnson (Penguin Classics) with reader recommendations.

All Quiet on the Western Front

Which All Quiet on the Western Front translation should you read? Compare A.W. Wheen's classic 1929 version with Maria Tatar's acclaimed new Penguin Classics translation.

Which Stranger translation should you read? Compare Matthew Ward's Vintage classic ("Maman died today") with Sandra Smith's Penguin Modern Classics version ("The Outsider").

Which Pedro Páramo translation should you read? Compare Margaret Sayers Peden's Grove Press classic (Sontag foreword) with Douglas Weatherford's 2023 Serpent's Tail translation (García Márquez intro).

Which Pinocchio translation should you read? Compare Ann Lawson Lucas's scholarly Oxford World's Classics with John Hooper's Penguin Classics translation — Collodi's original, unexpurgated novel.

The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

Which Hunchback of Notre-Dame translation should you read? Compare John Sturrock's Penguin Classics with Alban Krailsheimer's Oxford World's Classics — Hugo's original, unabridged novel.

Which Plague translation should you read? Compare Stuart Gilbert's classic Vintage version with Laura Marris's acclaimed 2022 Knopf translation — Camus's novel for our epidemic age.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Which Twenty Thousand Leagues translation should you read? Compare William Butcher's acclaimed Oxford scholarly edition with F.P. Walter's complete illustrated translation — and why the most famous English version got Verne badly wrong.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude has one English translation — Gregory Rabassa's 1970 masterwork, which García Márquez called better than his own Spanish original. Here's why it remains indispensable.

Which Germinal translation should you read? Compare Peter Collier's Oxford World's Classics version with Roger Pearson's Penguin Classics — Zola's great novel of miners, solidarity, and social fury.

Which Buddenbrooks translation should you read? Compare Mike Mitchell's acclaimed 2024 Oxford World's Classics version with the classic H.T. Lowe-Porter — Thomas Mann's great novel of a merchant family's decline.